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B. Scotus’ own Response
94. Therefore, as to the question, one must see first what the punishment of the bad is; second, whether it is from God; third, whether justice concurs with it; fourth whether mercy does.
1. What the Punishment of the Bad is
a. About the Essence of Punishment or about Sadness
95. About the first [n.94]:
Punishment is ‘a perceivable lack of an agreeable good in an intellectual nature’, or ‘a perceivable presence of a disagreeable evil’ in the same. Now the good of intellectual nature is double in kind: namely the good of advantage and the good of the honorable. The useful good, indeed, which is posited as a third, is reduced to either other of these, according as it is ordered toward it. And although sometimes the ideas of the advantageous and the honorable good come together in the same thing (as in the enjoyment of God in the fatherland), indeed although generally everything honorable is advantageous (but not conversely), yet the supreme advantage is beatitude and it would be advantageous even if, per impossibile, it were not honorable; also, the supreme good is charity and it would be honorable even if, per impossibile, it were not advantageous. Therefore in an intellectual nature there is a double punishment by privation of this double good: the first is called the bad of injustice or of guilt, and it can be called obstinacy in sin; the second is called the punishment of loss, or either loss or damnation.
96. The disagreeable bad in a nature merely intellectual cannot be any operation of that nature taken in itself, because any operation of it at all is agreeable. Indeed, every act of understanding, taken in itself, agrees with the intellect, and every act of willing agrees with the will; and likewise every act of willing-against, taken in itself, agrees with the will, because the will has willing-against as freely as it has willing, and so even when comparing this power with the former [sc. understanding], the operation of one is not disagreeable to the other. So, nothing will be found there [sc. in an intellectual nature] that is disagreeable positively to such nature save a distinct suffering opposite to its operation, or a disagreeable operation - not disagreeable in itself but because it is unwanted; such a passion is sadness. An unwanted operation, and indeed any unwanted thing generally, is cause, when put into effect, of sadness. Such sort of unwanted operation is immoderate consideration of fire, as was said before in d.44 n.7, which is against the command of the will that wills freely to use its intelligence for application now to this object, now to that; but now the intelligence is, contrary to this willing, detained always in intense consideration of fire, whereby it is impeded from perfect consideration of other objects, as was said there [ibid.]
b. About the Four Forms of Sadness
α. About the Privation of the Honorable Good, or of Grace, by Guilt
97. Now the sadness is there [in an intellectual nature] in a fourfold way in genus: double sadness about privation of double good.
One sadness indeed is about privation of the honorable good, or of grace, through guilt. For there is sadness about its own obstinacy in sin, which is the first privation - or at least about the sin committed in life, wherein it is now without remission left abandoned. The sadness is not indeed about this or that sin in itself as the sin is the sort of thing it is, but because the sin is a demerit with respect to punishment of loss; that is, the sadness is not because God is offended, but because, thinking on the fact it was immoderate in appetite, it deprived itself by sinning. And this sadness can properly be called the ‘pain of the worm’, namely sadness arising from remorse about sin committed, not because it is sin but because it is a demeriting cause with respect to the pain of loss.
β. About the Privation of the Advantageous Good, namely Beatitude
98. Sadness about the lack of the advantageous good, namely beatitude - this either has no name but can be called all-absorbing sadness, because that of which the desire is most of all present in nature, and specifically in it along with restraint by the justice it abandoned - the perpetual lack of this object of desire, when perceived, saddens totally by way of absorption; or its name is ‘pain of loss’, taken so as to be transitive in construal, that is pain about loss; for to call the mere lack of what is advantageous the ‘pain of loss’ is an intransitive construal.
γ. About the Double Positive Disagreeable
99. And there is a double sadness about what is positively disagreeable: one about the perpetual detention of fire as definitively locating it [sc. intellectual nature] in a place; another about the detention of the intellect in intense consideration of fire as object. Which two positives, namely two detentions, are not wanted and are therefore disagreeable - not so as to destroy the nature of the power they are in, but in the way it is disagreeable for the heavy to be above and in the way this would be sad for it if it were perceived by it. And these two sadnesses about double detention can be named as follows: the first as ‘penalty of incarceration’, the second as ‘penalty of blinding’ - read as transitive in construal, taking penalty for sadness and the term added in the genitive for the object that causes sadness.
100. In this way, therefore, we have two punishments in genus by privation of a double good, and a quadruple punishment by positing a quadruple sadness, with respect to which there are two positive causes (two unwanted detentions) and two privations (the unwanted and perceived privations).
2. Whether the Punishment of the Bad is from God, or about the Four Penalties
a. About the First and Second Penalty or Punishment
101. About the second article [n.94]:
The first penalty [n.97], namely the continuation of guilt without intermission, which continuation can be called ‘obstinacy’, does not have God for positive cause. For just as guilt, when committed, does not, as guilt, have any positive cause, so neither does it to the extent that guilt as guilt is continued; and, as guilt, it is the first penalty, according to the remark of Augustine Confessions 1.12 n.19, “You have commanded, Lord, and so it is, that every sinner should be a punishment to himself;” and there was discussion of this in Ord. II d.7 n.92. Now this guilt, as continued, is from God as negative cause, namely as not remitting it. He is not, however, the first cause, but the will itself voluntarily continuing it is the demeritorious cause that God does not remit it - or at least the will itself, when it committed it, demerited, though it not always continue it after the act of the sin.
102. The second penalty likewise, since it is a privation, has no positive cause, but does have God as negative cause, because having him as not conferring beatitude; but this ‘not causing’ of God’s has another cause, a cause of demerit, in the [one punished], namely guilt, whereby it was said [n.97] that this advantage is not conferred on him.
b. About the Third and Fourth Penalty or Punishment
103. But the two unwanted punishments, namely the two detentions [n.99], are from God, because they are positive realities and consequently good.
And the first detention is from God immediately, at least as it is perpetual, because although fire may detain a spirit as if formally, yet it does not effectively locate him in place, namely neither by effectively detaining him in this ‘where’ nor by prohibiting him from that ‘where’; nor does a spirit locate himself, at least not perpetually. Therefore God is immediately cause of this definitive, perpetual detention.
And of the other detention, namely of the intelligence in intense consideration of fire, the proximate but partial cause is the fire. Now God is the remaining and immediate cause, because according to the common order of causes, an object should, in acting on someone’s intelligence, have a causality subordinate with respect to his will; but here the object is not subordinate to the will of the spirit himself, rather it moves against his will, as if immediately subordinate to the divine will.
104. These four sadnesses, then, since they are positive effects, are from God, but all are so mediately, namely through the medium of apprehension of the unwanted object.
3. Whether Justice Goes Along with the Aforesaid Punishments or Penalties of the Bad
105. About the third article [n.94] I say that since justice is taken in two ways in God (as was said in this distinction, question 1 [n.22]), there is in this punishment not only the first justice, namely because it befits divine goodness to punish thus, but also the second, because this punishment is a certain exigency or just correspondence of penalty to guilt.
106. And this can become clear by running through the aforesaid punishments.
a. About God’s Justice in the First Penalty
107. The first punishment [n.97] indeed is not inflicted, nor could it be inflicted justly, since it is guilt formally but a penalty left afterwards, as Augustine says On Psalms, Psalm 5 n.10, “When God punishes sinners, he does not inflict his evil on them but leaves the bad to their evils.” I understand this of the first penalty, which is the guilt left afterwards, or not remitted, or the abandonment of the sinner in this sort of guilt; and this, in the way it was said to be from God in the preceding article [n.101], is thus justly from him. For he justly abandons or does not remit, whether because the will voluntarily continues to will badly, or because it remained in sin without penance to the end (which time, however, was precisely reckoned to it for penance), or, third, because in wayfaring it sinned, where it deserved by demerit to be thus left behind.
108. Just indeed it is that he who continues malice not be freed from malice by another - and not this case only but he who could have left malice behind and had time precisely reckoned for this and is not corrected in that time but perseveres in evil; for it is just that, when the time has elapsed, he be left to that evil. Third too (which is less evident), if someone by his guilt has thrown himself into an incapacity of escaping, not only of escaping by himself but also by anyone’s help save his whom he then offends, he justly deserves to be abandoned in his incapacity - in the way that, if someone were to throw himself voluntarily into a pit from which he could not get out by himself, or in any way, save by the help of another whom he despises and offends by throwing himself therein, he can justly be left behind in it.
109. These three points are sufficiently clear as to the issue at hand, because someone damned is continually in some bad act of will (as seems probable), and persists impenitent up to the end of life, and offends as wayfarer by tottering into sin from which he cannot escape by himself save only by disposing himself with congruous merit, and that for this state of life, through the whole of which state he passed fruitlessly without such merit.
b. About God’s Justice in the Second Penalty
α. Exposition
110. The second penalty too [n.98] is from God in this way, that is, negatively, because it is from him as not conferring beatitude. Justly is it from him, because as he justly requires the honorable good in order that the advantageous good be given in return for it, so he justly requires a sin that takes away the honorable good in order that the privation of the advantageous good be given in return for it. And this just correspondence of the privation of the advantageous good with the privation of the honorable good puts that guilt in order, the way guilt can, while it remains, be put in order; for, absolutely, guilt is against order, and therefore it cannot remain in the whole along with the order that can exist in the whole, while the whole remains, unless something be added that the order of the whole requires to be added. An example: rottenness in a bodily member is simply against the good order of the body, because, if it is not taken away, the better order of body that is able to be had cannot stand while the rottenness stands, unless something is applied to it, namely something else that corresponds to the rotten member according to the natural order of the body, that is to say, unless something else is applied that would prevent the sort of communication between the rotten member and the other members that there would be if there were no rottenness.
111. In favor of this is Boethius Consolation 4 prose 4 n.21, “The base are more unhappy when given unjust impunity than when punished with just punishment.” And no wonder, because in the first place there is no good save the good of nature, which good however is vitiated by the evil of guilt; in the second place, beyond the good of nature there is a good which reforms guilt, that is, the just correspondence with it of the penalty.
β. Two Objections and Response to the First
112. On the contrary:
Between bad and bad there does not seem to be any relation in which goodness may exist.
113. Again, it would be better at any rate if the first bad were taken away than if it remained and another corresponding bad were added, as is apparent in the example about the rotten member [n.110], where expulsion of the rottenness were simply better for the body than were the prohibition of communication between that member and the other ones.
114. As to the first [n.112]: there is a necessary correspondence between false and false, so there is a just correspondence between the bad of the dishonorable and the bad of the disadvantageous.
γ. Response to the Second
115. [Others’ response] - As to the second it is said [Aquinas, ST, Ia q.22 a.2 ad 2, q.48 a.2 ad 3] that the universe’s being better requires that some evils be allowed in it; and this is taken from Augustine, Enchiridion, 8 n.27: “The Omnipotent One judged it better to allow evils to come to be, because he is able from those evils to elicit greater goods.”
116. Again ibid., 3 n.11, “evils suitably placed do the more eminently commend goods.”
117. And this conclusion is drawn specifically in the issue at hand [Aquinas, Sent. IV d.46 q.2 a.1, q.1 a.2], because, by the allowance of faults and of punishment for them, the justice in divine effects is apparent, and it would not be apparent if no fault were allowed. Augustine says this in City of God 21.12, “The human race is separated into parts, so that in some may be shown what merciful grace is capable of, in the rest what just vengeance is capable of; for neither would both be shown in all of them.”
118. Further, this commending of the good by the juxtaposition of evil is referred back to the glory of the saints [Aquinas, ibid. d.46 q.1 a.3], about whom Isaiah 66.24 says, “They will go out and will see the corpses of men, and it will be for the satiety of all flesh,” in accord with Psalm 57.11, “The just will be happy since he has seen vengeance.”
119. And Augustine treats of this in City of God 20.21.
120. It would therefore have to be denied [sc. by those, nn.115-119, who thus respond to the objection, n.113] that it would be better for the universe that the bad of guilt be taken away from the bad [n.113], because then the goodness would be taken away that there is in just punishment, and punishment cannot be just or good if all guilt were taken away.
121. Nor is the example about the rotten member valid [n.110], on the ground that, just as removal of rottenness would be better for the body than the withering of the member with its rottenness remaining, so it would be better for this person that his guilt and punishment be taken away than that the double privation along with such mutual correspondence remain in him, because each privation is bad in itself and bad for him, and worse than the correspondence of this to that would be good for him.
But that correspondence is better in the universe than no such correspondence being in the universe, because a plurality of degrees of goodness belongs to the perfection of the universe - just as it would be better for the moon to have the light of the sun [sc. as its own], if it could have it while its nature remained, but not better for the universe, because then there would not be all degrees of luminaries in the universe.
122. [Scotus’ Response] - Against this:
Neither has the highest nature possible been made in the universe nor will it be made, as is maintained with probability, nor will all possible degrees of beatitude in beatifiable nature be in the kingdom of heaven. If then God will not make, for the sake of the perfection of the universe, all the degrees of goodness that are not only good for the universe but good in themselves and good for those who have them, what necessity is there that, for the sake of the perfection of the universe, there be this lowest goodness, which is in itself bad and bad for him who has it? Indeed, it is worse than any goodness that is in itself good and good for him who has it. Surely it would be better that all such [lowest goods] are taken away and that in their place goods are given that would be good in themselves and good for those who have them, namely their blessedness?
123. This excludes the first reason [n.115]: for greater goods are not elicited from the bad, as it seems, than are the goods that are taken away by the bad. For this depriving punishment is not simply better than the charity or beatitude that is deprived.
124. As to the other point touched on, that ‘evil suitably ordered the more eminently commends the good’ [n.116], it seems that eminent commendation of the good does not require that what is also evil is suitably ordered, since all of it is evil because against order. Nor is there a likeness about diverse colors in pictures, because every color is something positive and moves sight in its own way; but if a painter could leave in one place a vacuum, not for this reason would the picture be more beautiful.
125. The next point, about the manifestation of divine justice [n.117], does not seem to prove the conclusion; for it is a more eminent act, even of justice, to reward him who deserves well than to punish him who deserves ill. Indeed, the lowest justice is vindictive justice, hence its act should never be purely elective, as in the case of reward or exchange, but as it were elective with a certain displeasure. And that act of will is less perfect, because in order for it to be good it should be less voluntary; for a robust choice for revenge is cruelty. Now this inference does not follow: ‘divine justice does not appear in the lowest act that can belong to justice, therefore it does not appear’; rather it more eminently appears in other more eminent acts of justice.
126. The fourth point, namely about the happiness of the blessed [n.118], does not seem it should move us; for just as, according to Gregory Dialogues 4, “God, because he is pious, does not feed on torment; because he is just, he is not assuaged by vengeance on the wicked,” so is it much more repugnant to the blessed to feed on torment, because this is attributed to God precisely because of justice, and justice sometimes compels the judge to avenge when another, not a judge, feels compassion for the one punished. But let it be that the blessed are now conformed to divine justice and therefore are happy about the punishment of Judas, surely they would be happier about his glorification if he were beatified? It is plain that they would be; for now Peter rejoices more in the beatitude of Linus [Bishop of Rome after Peter] than in the damnation of Judas; but if Judas were beatified, Peter would be happy about his beatitude just as he is now about the beatitude of Linus.
c. About God’s Justice in the Third Penalty
127. Excluding these views then [nn.115-121], and confirming the reasons taken from the words of Augustine [nn.115-118], it can be said that in the third penalty [n.99] the justice of exigency sufficiently appears; for, just as fitting the good is a ‘where’ in the noblest body (a ‘where’ circumscriptively for the bodies of the blessed and definitively for the good angels), but with liberty for another ‘where’ at will (because it is a feature of glory to be able to use one’s motive power for any ‘where’ that is not repugnant to glory), so is it just that the reprobate be placed in the most vile body, which is the earth, and to be limited to that ‘where’ in which they are deprived of motive power - which power they would use badly if they could, because of the malice of their will.
d. About God’s Justice in the Fourth Penalty
128. In the fourth penalty too [n.99] there is justice, because as the intellect of the blessed is determined toward seeing the noblest object, that is, the divine essence, and as concomitantly their will is determined toward enjoying that object (with liberty remaining, however, to consider and love other objects, the consideration and love of which do not impede that good), so is the intellect of the bad determined toward intensely considering an object that is disagreeable, because not wanted, and imperfect, because corporeal, and their will determined toward something placed in existence that is saddening, and the liberty to consider and will other things is taken away, by which, when considered and willed, this punishment could be lessened. And the reason both in the case of the good and in that of the bad is that they merited precisely through their intellect and will. And these powers are the noblest of an intellectual nature, in whose perfection or imperfection, by consequence, consists precisely the perfection or imperfection of such nature.
e. About God’s Justice in the Other Four Penalties
129. Now in the other four penalties, namely the sadnesses [n.100], justice sufficiently appears, because the consummation of the penalty requires sadness.26 But if about damned men after the judgment there is put, in place of the second detention [sc. the devils’ intense consideration of fire, nn.99, 103], burning in fire, and in place of the fourth sadness [sc. sadness about such intense consideration of fire, n.128] pain in sense appetite, then there is justice from the correspondence of this bitterness with the inordinate delight it had in sin.
4. Whether Mercy Goes Along with the Punishment of the Bad
130. As to the fourth article [n.94], as was said in d.46 q.2 [n.57], liberating mercy removes the whole of misery; mitigating but not liberating mercy removes part of what is due. The first is not relevant here, but the second.
a. Opinion of Thomas Aquinas
α. Exposition of the Opinion
131. For this the following reason is given [Aquinas, Sent. IV d.46 q.2 a.2]: “Agent and patient always correspond to each other proportionally, such that the agent is related to action as the patient to passion. Now things unequal among themselves do not have the same proportion to other things unless the other things are unequal among themselves - the way that six and four, because unequal, have the proportion of double to the similarly unequal three and two. Therefore, when the agent exceeds the patient, the action must exceed the passion.”
132. And there is confirmation of this conclusion, because we see in all equivocal agents that the patient does not receive the whole of the effect.
133. From this conclusion to the issue at hand the inference is as follows [Aquinas, ibid.]: “The giver is disposed the way an agent is, and the receiver is disposed the way a patient is; therefore, when the giver exceeds beyond the receiver, it is fitting that the giving exceed the receiving that is proportionate to the receiver. Now ‘less bad’ and ‘more good’ are reckoned as the same, as is said in Ethics 5.7.1131b22-23; therefore as God always gives beyond desert, so he always inflicts bad less than desert.” p. Refutation of the Opinion
β Refutation of the Opinion
134. Against this position. First as follows:
If two things have the same proportion to two other things, then, to the extent that one term of the first pair exceeds the other term of that first pair, to that extent one term of the second pair is exceeded by the other term of that second pair; and this holds when speaking of ‘so much’ and ‘as much’ according to proportion, not according to quantity. The point is plain in his example [n.131]: for just as six is one and half times four, so three is one and half times two. But never because the agent or giver in the issue at hand infinitely exceeds the sufferer or receiver does the agent exceed the patient, or the action exceed the passion, nor yet the act of giving go infinitely beyond desert.
135. If you say that, on the contrary, divine action and giving, as far as concerns God himself, is infinite because it is his act of willing - then the argument [n.131] is not to the purpose. For from this does not follow that the agent has some extrinsic causation greater than the passive thing is suited to receive, nor does it follow that something be extrinsically given that is greater than the receiver is fitted to receive; but it only follows that the agent’s action, as it remains in itself, is something more perfect than the reception of it; such would be the case if in the effect were given to the recipient nothing save the minimum that was proportioned to the recipient.
136. Again, his example is to the opposite purpose [n.131]: for if the passive object does not receive the total effect of an equivocal agent, then: either some other passive object does, and in that case an equivocal agent would always require several passive objects at once; or no passive object does, and in that case the agent will have, along with the effect in the passive object, another effect standing by itself - both of which results are manifestly unacceptable.27
137. Hence, although the argument, when it speaks of the action, could be qualified by raising a difficulty in this way, that an action is taken that remains in God himself as agent, yet when it speaks of the effect (in the way the argument here says that the passive object does not receive the total effect of an equivocal agent [n.132]), it is manifestly false; and thus is it false also when it speaks of the action as it is in the passive object [n.133] (the way the Philosopher speaks in Physics [3.3.202b19-22]). 138. To the reasoning then [n.131]: either the major is false or the minor,28 or it equivocates over ‘proportion’, and this when speaking of action as it is something in the passive object. For if [the minor] takes proportion properly, and thus takes it that there is a similar proportion between agent and action and between patient and passion, the proposition is false, as is this proposition ‘the patient exceeds the form received in it as much as the agent exceeds the form given by it’. Nor does this understanding of a like proportion between these four terms follow from the antecedent, that ‘the agent is proportioned to the patient’; for they are proportioned in this respect, that the one is such actually as the other is potentially, where the two are the extremes of one proportion. How can from this be inferred that these two terms have a like proportion to the other two terms, namely action and passion, save by supposing that action is such actually as the passion is potentially? - which is false. But if it takes ‘proportion’ in some way improperly, namely not according to exceeding and exceeded, but in some other way, according to which the major could perhaps have an appearance in some way of truth, then thus is the second [sc. the major] not true, that ‘unequals have a similar proportion only to unequals’ [n.101].
b. Scotus’ own Opinion
139. I say therefore that for this conclusion, namely that there is mitigating mercy in punishment, a better foundation is obtained from James 2.13, “Mercy triumphs over justice,” because, as was said at the beginning of the solution [n.89], “the more that several virtues come together in some work, the more perfect is that work;” thus, if judgment is from justice and, along with this, from mercy, it is so much the more perfect. Such is the case if, when inflicting something that justice commands to be inflicted, something is remitted that mercy inclines toward remitting; and so mercy triumphs over divine judgment to the extent that divine judgment is more perfect coming from mercy than it would be coming from justice alone.
140. Against this: on the contrary, mercy seems to destroy just judgment, for as vengeance is to be exacted by justice, so must it be exacted in proportion to the fault; therefore, as it would be against justice not to avenge, so would it be against justice not to avenge totally.
141. I reply: to give an undue good is not against justice because it is an act of liberality, and the act of one virtue is not repugnant to another; but to take away a due good is against justice. Now as it is, ‘to give good’ and ‘not to inflict bad’ keep pace with each other as far as justice is concerned; therefore ‘to inflict bad beyond what is due’ is against justice because it is to subtract a due good; but ‘to inflict bad less than what is due’ is not against justice, as neither is ‘to give an undue good’ against justice.
142. On the contrary: the argument still stands, because then ‘to inflict no bad’ would not be against justice, nor would ‘to confer or give the maximum undue good’ be against justice.
143. There is a confirmation, that to this guilt with three degrees of intensity there corresponds, in strict justice, a penalty having three dimensions or parts, a, b, c. From what has been granted, it is consistent with justice that c not be inflicted. From this follows, first, that, by parity of reasoning, it would be consistent with justice that b not be inflicted (because b is not more necessarily commanded to be inflicted than c is), and so on about a. Secondly, it follows that if justice permits one degree in the sin to go unpunished with its own proper punishment, then by parity of reasoning justice can permit another degree to go unpunished, and so the whole to go unpunished.
144. Look for the response.a
a.a [Interpolation] One must say that justice has a latitude in its degrees beyond which, if God did not punish, he would not be using justice. Therefore, although he could dismiss one degree of the penalty or two, yet it does not follow that he could therefore dismiss any degree, because then he would pass beyond the latitude required for justice. And thus is the response to these two arguments plain [nn.142-43].
It could be said in another way that if he were to dismiss [any degree] he would not be acting against justice absolutely considered, because whatever he did he would justly do, since his will is justice itself, and his will would be acting according to justice, though not ordained justice.
The first solution [first paragraph in this interpolation] is taken from Ord. IV dd.18-19 nn.24-26; and the second solution [second paragraph in this interpolation] is taken from the present distinction [nn.29-34].